Sherell Guichard-Thomas, a member of the South Plains Obedience Training Club, puts her dog Lillie through an obstacle course. Lillie won the top three awards at the American Bouvier des Flandres Club competition in 2003 at St. Louis and has been among the top five Bouviers nationally since 2004.

A dog owned by Joann Neal that comes when it is called by the name of Sandstorm Skirt Alert, shows its winning form in the weave poles. Skirt is the third poodle to ever become an AKC Triple Champion. The first was her mother, Betty, also owned by Neal.

Teresa Janssen, left, poses for a picture at recent AKC National Agility Championships with Joann Neal, training director for the South Plains Obedience Training Club. Janssen's dog is a toy poodle named Taz.

PROVIDED BY SHERELL GUICHARD-THOMAS05-13DogPerformersJackThis Shar-Pei, owned by Paula Perry, a member of the South Plains Obedience training Club, is the top agility Shar-Pei in the nation. The super dog can leap over tall obstacles in a single bound.

She is a longtime member of the South Plains Obedience Training Club, and her dogs, along with those of several other members, have reached national prominence.

So, there must be a reason so many Lubbock dogs frequently become national performing stars.

Not many have taken to the singing and acting fields, it's true, but a number can leap over tall obstacles, speed through weave poles, sit on command, and in general conduct themselves as mannerly, law-abiding citizens.

What most often seems to lift a pet or a performance dog from the mediocrity of the pack is the training invested by its owner.

"If you put effort into the dog - even if you just want a good family pet, and you take time with training and have the dog understand its place in the family - that helps a lot," Guichard-Thomas explains.

She also alludes to an added measure of training required to reach the national dog-show stage. And the training is not just for the dog:

"Any performance sport is a team sport," she said.

The dog has to carry his particular weight of responsibility, and the handler must prompt the performance by clear signals that communicate quickly and effectively.

"A lot of times it's the person that's the problem," Guichard-Thomas said. "We give them wrong signals or aren't able to communicate with them in a way that they can understand and do what we ask them to do."

She added, "Usually any errors you see in the performance ring, it's the person's fault, and not the dog."

Lillie, a Bouvier des Flandres owned and handled by Guichard-Thomas, won the top three awards at the American Bouvier des Flandres Club competition in 2003 at St. Louis.

"She just really did well," Guichard-Thomas said. "They also have a competition at our national specialty that is called the Multi-Level Performance Award, and she won that, too. It was great. You are given a victory lap when you win something like that."

Lillie has been among the top five Bouviers nationally in obedience, rally and agility since 2004.

Guichard-Thomas said an Australian cattle dog owned by club member JoAnn Phillips was one of the top dogs in the nation for several years.

"And he's only the third one ever in history to be an obedience trial champion," Guichard-Thomas said.

She said others in the club, including Teresa Janssen and Rhonda Clark, also have reached the national arena with their dogs, and Paula Perry's Shar-Pei has become the top agility Shar-Pei in the nation.

Guichard-Thomas has this answer for what makes Lubbock dogs so successful:

"Really, I would say it's Joann Neal. She is an excellent training director."

Neal, who owned a poodle that was the first of the breed to ever become a triple champion, emphasizes training.

"People, in order to have good dogs, have to invest their time with that goal in mind," Neal said.

"To have dogs that are nice and successful in whatever you want them to be successful at - whether it's being a house pet or in some competitive venue - you have got to be willing to invest the time and energy to cause it to happen."

She said, "It would be incomplete not to also say that the selection of the right dog for your goals is of paramount importance."

Experienced breeders can advise which dogs make good family members, and which lend themselves more to other purposes.

"If you're buying from people who know and understand their breed, they recognize the differences," she said. "I do certain testing on the puppies from a temperament standpoint to identify which are the meeker and milder, and which are the bolder of the dogs. Then I make sure I get them to the right people."

According to Phillips, her Australian cattle dog Lucky has been willing to do whatever she asked of him, and after finishing his championship course in 2006 he was retired to enjoy the good life. He is 12 years old now.

"We have a good bond," she said. "Cattle dogs are a breed that is very conscious of what their owner wants. They call them Velcro dogs because they become extremely attached to their owners."

Phillips also attributes the success of Lubbock dogs to the fact that Neal, as a top-notch trainer, serves the South Plains Obedience Training Club.

"She has been willing to help in whatever way she could for any person in our club - and any person's dog that was willing also to put in the work to show success and progress," Phillips said.

"We have a very unique situation. Most people in most other towns have to pay a lot of money to get training. But Joann does it as a service to our club."

The dogs' success wasn't so hard to understand after all. Much of it came from Neal's training of the trainers.